Big city radio newscaster – Small town humor columnist

You can catch me doing newscasts for NPR News on weekends. My humor columns appear every other Saturday in The Journal, the daily newspaper serving West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. They are also recommended to newspapers throughout the state by the West Virginia Press Association.

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When All Else Fails Try a Pizza

I suspect the answer varies according to how many you have in the house.

At mine, there are two.

And, believe it or not, they put aside their sibling rivalry long enough to cooperate.

Call it a pizza-inspired détente – an easing of hostilities brought on by the stomach pleasing melding of pepperoni, tomato sauce and cheese.

But judging by the aftermath, the goodwill didn’t last long.

The idea to throw a pizza in the oven originated with our 15-year-old son.

It should not have come as a surprise. If there is one thing that obsesses him more than the Internet, it’s pizza.

Even chicken wings, his other favorite food, don’t make his mouth water as much. He’ll do anything for a slice of pizza and at times, seems desperate to keep a pie on hand. For example, we once left a pizza party (where he filled up on pizza) when he noticed an extra-large that was going to go to waste.

He grabbed it.

“For later,” he told me on the way home.

My son’s obsession for pizza has even led him to start a quest. He told me not long ago that he wanted to find the best pizza in town. Once a week, we have to order delivery from a different pizzeria. As far I know, he’s still looking for his ultimate pie.

But that doesn’t mean he’s somehow opposed to frozen pizza.

My wife and I were out at a charity dinner, spending a rare evening with other adults, when he texted me about his desire for yet another pizza. He apparently didn’t care for the leftover lasagna we’d left and had noticed a frozen pizza in the refrigerator.

I agreed he could have it, but I had misgivings. After all, I wanted to come home to an intact house, not one scorched by a pizza-sparked fire.

When I asked him to please not burn down the house, he sent me a happy “lol” and said that he’d baked pizzas before and that I shouldn’t worry.

Turns out he was right.

Baking the pizza wasn’t the problem. It was getting it out of the oven and eating it that was troublesome.

When my wife and I arrived back home, the kitchen looked like the kids had a fight with balloons filled with pizza sauce. Bright red splotches of sauce were splattered all over the counter and on the floor, where I found the pizza’s cardboard box and plastic wrapping.

While we were putting the kitchen back together, our daughter explained that she had to help get the pizza out of the oven and that the sauce ended up all over the place because she and her brother couldn’t find the pizza cutter.

I asked “So what did you do? Tear it apart?”

“Pretty much,” she admitted.

Our kids must have looked like wolves snapping at each other over a fresh kill.

But if pizza can inspire them to work together to at least get one out of the oven without burning down the house, maybe Congress and the White House could use a slice or two as they work this weekend to keep the government from imploding.